Great want of uniformity in treatment in the various prisons was still noticeable, and was indeed destined to continue for another half century, in other words, until the introduction of the Prison Act of 1877.[76] At the time of which I am writing there was great diversity of practice as regards the hours of labour. In some prisons the prisoners worked seven hours a day, in others ten and ten and a half. The nature of the employment varied greatly in severity, especially the tread-wheel labour. In some county gaols, as I have already said, female prisoners were placed upon the tread-wheel; in others women were very properly exempted from it, and also from all severe labour. Earnings were very differently appropriated. Here the prisoners were given the whole amount, there a half or a third. Sometimes this money might be expended in the purchase of extra articles of food.[77] The rations varied considerably everywhere. It was still limited to bread in some places, the allowance of which varied from one to three pounds; in others meat, soup, gruel, beer were given. Here and there food was not issued in kind, but a money allowance which the prisoner might expend himself. Bedding and clothing was still denied, but only in a few gaols; in others both were supplied in ample quantities, the cost varying per prisoner from twenty shillings to five pounds. It was plain that although the law had defined general principles of prison government, too much discretion was still left to the magistracy to fill in the details. The legislature only recommended, it did not peremptorily insist. Too often the letter of the law was observed, but not its spirit. One great impediment to wide amelioration was that a vast number of small gaols lay out of reach of the law. When the new acts were introduced, numerous prisons under local jurisdiction were exempted from the operation of the law. They were so radically bad that reform seemed hopeless, and it was thought wiser not to bring them under provisions which clearly could not be enforced. Mr. Peel, who as Home Secretary had charge of the bill, which became the 4 Geo. IV. cap. 64, said that he had abstained from legislating for these small jurisdictions "on mature deliberation." "It is not," he said, "that I am insensible of the lamentable and disgraceful situation in which many of them are, but I indulge a hope that many of them will contract with the counties, that many of them will build new gaols, and that when in a year or two we come to examine their situation, we shall find but few which have not in one or other of these ways removed the grievance of which such just complaint is made. When that time arrives I shall not hesitate to ask Parliament for powers to compel them to make the necessary alterations, for it is not to be endured that these local jurisdictions should remain in the deplorable situation in which many of them now are."